This invention relates to urging apparatus for elongated articles, and more particularly apparatus of the type employed to push or draw elongated cable through buried conduits or across other inaccessible areas.
When laying electrical and/or telephone cables in an underground conduit, for example, it is important to assure that the cable will maintain its electrical continuity once it has been placed within the conduit. Specifically, it is frequently necessary to draw wire between two or more manholes or junction points which are spaced along a buried conduit. If the distance between manholes or junction points exceeds a certain length, there is a risk that a constant pulling and/or pushing force necessary to move the cable through the conduit will rupture the cable and render it ineffective. Thus, merely pulling or pushing the cable through a length of conduit may result in damaged cables or a severing of electrical continuity.
Employing a device which extends through the entire length of a conduit may prevent such risks of damage, but such a device would include a plurality of components resulting in a great multiplicity of parts which may become disassociated, lost or broken. Further, such an arrangement would be difficult to install or remove from a manhole or other restricted space.
To more effectively push or pull cable through conduit over a long distance, a plurality of such apparatus should be adapted to work in conjunction with one another so that a limited amount of force may be applied uniformily along the cable to thereby alleviate the likelihood of damage. To otherwise require the installation and removal of one pulling apparatus in a plurality of manholes to progressively move an elongated cable, would be cost and time-wise inefficient.